Science (and common sense) finds no sign of the soul

I'd happily believe that I have, or am, a soul if there was any good evidence that soul animates the body. Instead, it's pretty damn clear that the physical human brain is the source of notions about the soul. 

A nice fantasy, because almost everyone likes the idea of living on after the body dies. However, Stephen Cave's article in Skeptic magazine, "What Science Really Says About the Soul," demolishes familiar arguments for the existence of a non-material me.

I was pleased to see that Cave makes many of the same points that I have in posts about the brain/soul. The most basic being: if soul is the foundation of consciousness, then why do changes to the physical brain have such an obvious effect on consciousness?

Every time I drink a cup of coffee, or imbibe a glass of wine, I prove that my consciousness is affected by material causes.

Here's some excerpts from Cave's piece:

In 2009, over 70 percent of Americans said they believe that they, like Natalie, have a soul that will survive the end of their body.

...The evidence of science, when brought together with an ancient argument, provides a very powerful case against the existence of a soul that can carry forward your essence once your body fails.

...every part of the mind can now be seen to fail when some part of the brain fails.

..But if we each have a soul that enables us to see, think and feel after the total destruction of the body, why, in the cases of dysfunction documented by neuroscientists, do these souls not enable us to see, think, and feel when only a small portion of the brain is destroyed?

...They [people who imagine their soul leaving the body] believe, therefore, that their soul can see. But if the soul can see when the entire brain and body have stopped working, why, in the case of people with damaged optic nerves, can't it see when only part of the brain and body have stopped working? In other words, if blind people have a soul that can see, why are they blind?

...In fact, evidence now shows that everything the soul is supposed to be able to do -- think, remember, love -- fails when some relevant part of the brain fails. Even consciousness itself -- otherwise there would be no general anesthetics. A syringe full of chemicals is sufficient to extinguish all awareness.

...Some defenders of the soul have, of course, attempted to answer this question. They argue, for example, that the soul needs a functioning body in this world, but not in the next. One view is that the soul is like a broadcaster and the body like a receiver -- something akin to a television station and a TV set.

...Most believers expect their soul to be able to carry forward their mental life with or without the body; this is like saying that the TV signal sometimes needs a TV set to transform it into the picture, but once the set is kaput, it can make the picture all by itself. But if it can make the picture all by itself, why does it sometimes act through an unreliable set?

...This suggests we are nothing like a television; but much more like, for example, a music box: the music is not coming from elsewhere, but from the workings within the box itself. When the box is damaged, the music is impaired; and if the box is entirely destroyed, then the music stops for good.

There is much about consciousness that we still do not understand. We are only beginning to decipher its mysteries, and may never fully succeed. But all the evidence we have suggests that the wonders of the mind -- even near-death and out of body experiences -- are the result of neurons firing.

Contrary to the beliefs of the vast majority of people on Earth, from Hindus to New Age spiritualists, consciousness depends upon the brain and shares its fate in the end.

Comments

[777]

Brian says :
"This suggests we are nothing like a television; but much more like, for example, a music box:"

It does hardly matter that a cat can"t read
and cats don't bother

The presence of a Soul matters for
those who hear the Sounds feel the giant Love
like your first crush

SOLOPISM is that you are ON YOUR OWN !!
Absolutely nothing exists than You

but you found the best way to make simulations 'EVER'
and You can't have enough of it ever

And there is complete random
when an individual spark was created
but every spark is processed into love
sooner or later,
in a second or in hundred big bangs

And the harvest for Self
while approaching in an Fibonacci spiral
the center
is immense

One Saint per Galaxy is a lot of incoming love
but thanks to GDSs there is so much more

777

[Willie R.]

For the sake of illustration, let us assume that the physical universe (or that reality which comprises what humans perceive as a physical universe) exists as whatever it is, and would exist as whatever it is even if there were no such thing as awareness or consciousness or some form of sentience. This is the inevitable conclusion that is arrived at through the scientific method of inquiry. All the world's a stage, and we humans are merely temporary actors appearing and disappearing on it.

For billions of years (time being measured as the vibrational frequency of a cesium ion) following the rapid expansion of nobody-knows-what, the stage was a-building (for no discernible reason). After ten or eleven billion years, fundamental particles began to form complex arrangements on the stage. Within the last few hundred million years, those particle arrangements achieved startling complexity and thereby engendered sentience - or consciousness. The inescapable conclusion is that consciousness is an emergent property: our existence as conscious beings is entirely dependent upon "Reality". When humans try to assert that "Reality" is entirely dependent upon our consciousness, "Reality" has this annoying tendency to completely disregard such contentions. There is absolutely nothing that human beings can do to alter, influence, or direct the inevitable proceedings of "Reality" (whatever you might conceive it to be).

Here's the thing about all of the marvelous activity that goes on between an individual human beings ears: the enormous bulk of "Reality" did indeed exist before, and will continue to exist after, that activity ceases.

It did not bother any one of us that we did not, at one point, exist. It will not bother us when, at some point, we cease to exist.

An inescapable conclusion is that there is no difference between existence and non-existence. That is NOT some metaphysical conjecture. "Reality" does not give a flying f--k about your opinions. It did not manufacture some goal which you must come to realize, the non-realization of which places you in some sort of jeopardy. Or else what?

Not only will you (dear reader) never realize when you cease to exist - you will never realize that you actually ever existed when you actually do cease to exist. That is because there is no difference between the two states. They are exactly the same.

Realization of which does absolutely nothing for you. If you are enjoying your life, so much the better for you. If your life sucks (like mine does), then that's just too effing bad.

[Brian Hines]

Willie R, nicely said. I like your observation that there is no difference between existence and non-existence. Assume you are speaking from a cosmic perspective. Obviously (?) for us sentient beings there is a difference between existing and not-existing. Right?

[777]

-

The Plane came down in the ocean close to that island nobody had ever Mapped
One survivor, Joe Dimaggio found a shore

HE couldn't be more amazed at the scenes :
Whole villages and a nice social system around

Some Fighting too but in a strange way
because the inhabitants were all blind, descendants of some Crusoe persons with that genetic disease
blind, . . but they managed since 500 years

So, Jo thought it would be quite helpful
to tell them that the trees were green
the sky was blue, a bird was red . . . .

So they killed him

777

-

[cc]

"...for us sentient beings there is a difference between existing and not-existing. Right?"

We can't know what not-existing is, so the difference between it and existing is conceptual, not actual.

[Roger]

Willie R,

You mentioned,

"Realization of which does absolutely nothing for you. If you are enjoying your life, so much the better for you. If your life sucks (like mine does), then that's just too effing bad."

---What, in your opinion, would be an example of a 'non-life sucks' reality?

[Willie R.]

Roger - I do not understand your question. There is only "Reality" - or what IS - for lack of a better way to put it. No conditions can be excluded from what "Reality" actually is. I cannot conceive of a "non-life sucks" reality. Most people simply assume that any condition other than life sucks - categorically.

Now - if there actually is such a condition as existence, it had to "appear" to some condition that preceded it. That preceding condition is, of course, non-existence.

Living organisms have one objective: survival. Nothing else matters. Trouble is - nothing can survive indefinitely. Life's goal is impossible - it will always fail. So what knows this? "Reality" itself, which is non-existence.

You cannot find consciousness, awareness, or sentience because it doesn't exist (so to speak). It is the non-existence of "Reality" that knows existence cannot endure.

My smart-ass definition of existence would be: an exposition of what "Reality" is not.

Not to worry, though (unless you want to): there are no consequences at all relative to having lived.

[777]

Don't want to play with words

Imaging you click your switch_finger and suddenlyinstantly you are aware you are not human
at all but an galactic powerful alien in disguise with body garments draped around your chakra body
on a mission and

starting
thinking :
"What the fuck,
how long must I endure this shit mission"

Can somebody here do that ?

777

[Roger]

Thanks Willie R,

"If your life sucks (like mine does), then that's just too effing bad."

---Your(willie r) life sucks. However, specific to your life, what would be an example of your life non-sucks? That is, what needs to occur for your life to not suck?

[Willie R.]

Roger - in order for my life not to suck, it would have to come to an end. I am absolutely certain that it will suck until it comes to an end. I am OK with that.
I do not wish to continue to exist after this body ceases to function. I cannot imagine why anybody would want that.

I am worth a quarter of a million dollars dead, to my children. I just have to find some way to die before age 66 (22 months from now). That is my normal retirement age, when my former employer's group life insurance policy expires for me.

I'm workin' on it.